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Sandler. The next evolution in sales
“Sandler’s vision is to elevate the stature of selling to the next level,” said Sandler West Midlands Managing Director, Martin Hill. “It is in this pursuit that we are rebranding our company to better align with the expectations of the modern buyer and seller, serve our clients with innovative learning technologies and methodologies, and continue our evolution as an organisation offering more than ‘training’.”
I’m happy to share the news with you that Sander Training has announced a corporate rebrand and launch as of June 1, 2022.
Throughout our 50-year history, Sandler has pioneered the concepts of discovery-based, consultative selling, reinforcement training, and a holistic view of personal and professional achievement in sales and leadership. The rebrand embodies Sandler’s ongoing commitment to better align with the expectations of modern buyer and seller, serve our clients with innovative learning technologies and methodologies, and continue our evolution as an organization offering more than “training.”
Along with our new look and name, we’ve re-established the core elements that elevate the Sandler experience and drive results for our clients, including:
• Connection with the modern buyer
• Customizable learner journeys
• Collaborative coaching
• Ongoing reinforcement
• Technology-enabled solutions
• Personal transformation
Our mission remains to provide ongoing guidance and resources to enable anyone in a revenue-generating or leadership role to reach new levels of success.
I hope that you will join me in taking the next step forward with Sandler.
Martin Hill, Managing Director – Sandler West Midlands
It's full speed ahead for a new skills and employment partnership between Warwickshire County Council and HS2
Main works construction on the first phase of HS2, between London and Birmingham, began in September 2020 and Warwickshire County Council's Employability and Skills Team began playing an active role in promoting HS2 jobs locally.
As HS2 work programmes and Warwickshire HS2 job opportunities were set to rise, the WCC skills team (also known as the Warwickshire Skills Hub) wanted to do more to showcase the greater employment opportunities this presents to the county's communities.
HS2’s construction partner for the region, Balfour Beatty VINCI, forecasts that it will need a workforce of around 7,000 people to deliver its 90km stretch of HS2 which stretches from Warwickshire, through Birmingham and on to Staffordshire.
The opportunity to become a HS2 Job Brokerage Partner is an ideal partnership opportunity for HS2 and the Warwickshire Skills Hub team to work together and build a skills and careers strategy to a boost employment activity across the area.
Fay Winterburn, Warwickshire County Council's Employability and Skills Lead Commissioner, said: “We are delighted to become a HS2 Job Brokerage Partner and very much looking forward to collaborating on joint activity across Warwickshire and threading HS2 themes through many strands of our work such as Careers, Employment and Inclusive recruitment."
Julie Venn-Morton, Skills Manager at HS2 said: "We're delighted to have joined forces with Warwickshire County Council and look forward to working closely with the team at Warwickshire Skills Hub to ensure local residents are supported to access jobs on HS2. Our construction partners are actively recruiting for hundreds of roles and we want to see local people benefitting from these opportunities."
Warwickshire County Council's Portfolio Holder for Economy & Place, Cllr Martin Watson, said: "We welcome such a great opportunity to build on our existing partnership with the HS2 team and their partnership network. It was abundantly clear that the synergy and alignment between both teams works and their joint priorities meant that taking steps to formalise a joint approach for Warwickshire was a logical step and one we are really keen to embrace. "We believe HS2 employment opportunities are such a good fit for so many of our communities and we are very committed to playing an active role in showcasing such opportunities."
Coventry boosted by £75k Spirit of 2012 grant
Coventry City of Culture Trust has been awarded a grant of £75,000 from Spirit of 2012 to build on the successful work as part of the UK City of Culture year and fund a series of creative commissions.
Spirit of 2012 is the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy fund. Spirit awards grants for inclusive arts, sports and volunteering activities in communities that bring people together to improve their wellbeing.
The grant will continue to engage people in the city who, because of their circumstances, are often excluded from being able to lead or be part of cultural activity. Working in partnership with key cultural and historic venues in and around the city, the first commission will be ‘Cosy Creative Sessions’, providing creative activities for targeted groups, individuals and families alike.
The sessions aim to engage over 1,000 people in a high-quality, responsive, and sustained programme of creative activity ranging from upcycling and sewing to visual art and craft.
Ruth Hollis, CEO, Spirit of 2012, said: “Coventry City of Culture Trust delivered some incredible projects, from the Reform the Norm to the Story of Us, Little Amal to Cardboard Citizens and the Ruff Tuff Community Choir.
“Participation in activities such as those we saw in Coventry, has a positive impact on people, communities, and places, and we’re delighted to award this grant to the Trust to not only continue this work but to find ways of making these inclusive cultural projects sustainable for many years to come.”
How does circular economy unlock potential in the supply chain?
While COVID-19 gave the much-maligned single-use plastics industry a free pass because of consumer health fears, the debate around the supply chain potential for circular economies hasn’t stalled.
This is the view of Shelley Harris, commercial director of Coventry-based pallet pooler IPP, who says the debate continues to roll on.
Shelley argues that the hygiene focus rather than ‘greenwashing’ of plastics is only a temporary setback for a realisation that circular economies are inevitable, not just from a profit and loss point of view, but a reputational standpoint. This is despite only 9% of global businesses currently being engaged with them.
Why? Shelley says it’s thanks in no small part to the current Generation Z being far more forensic in their ethical buying habits. “As consumers and future investors, they not only want to know where things originate from and where they end up, but will actively use the digital means at their disposal to name and shame those who fall short in their environmental hygiene”.
“What we have always described as ECOnomics is playing out on a global supply chain stage. This is where the environmental sustainability of circular models ultimately costs less than their linear equivalents in cash terms as well as reputational risk”.
“Rampant inflation, cost of living crises, war in Europe and general geo-political instability has seen essential commodity costs”.
Shelley adds: “In our own sector, the humble wooden pallet has been the subject of over-inflated global timber prices, but at least it is already part of a circular economy where those costs and collateral reputational damage can be more effectively managed. It has, for a long time, been part of the solution rather than the problem”.
According to Shelley, older established supply chains need to wean themselves off linear dependency, while new starters and business disruptors need to re-design the archaic supply chains of yesteryear to release the full potential economically and environmentally.
This means prioritising the replacement of high-risk products, packaging and materials with safe, secure and sustainable alternatives, to create a new value proposition that includes, for example, the reduction of unnecessary delivery legs to cut emissions, CO2 and NOx outputs.
To achieve this unlocking of potential, we need to work with suppliers to share their vision, as well as good and best practice. This helps build sustainable and collaborative partnerships for the future on trust and open-book relationships to leverage value for all.
Debt recovery – why it is so important
SMEs lose millions of pounds every year due to late payment of invoices. According to the Federation for Small Businesses, 62% of small businesses report being affected by late payments at some point and around 50,000 small companies are forced to close as a result.
Coventry-based accountants Aksews points out that once an invoice passes 90 days overdue, you are 50% less likely to be paid.
Therefore, it is vital to put measures such as cloud accounting and automated invoice chasing in place to keep track of what customers have or have not paid.
Despite the right to collect interest on late payments, research has shown that an estimated 50-80% of SMEs do not charge interest on late payments.
The main reasons are attributed to business owners being unaware of their rights under the Late Payment Act 1998 and the reluctance to upset commercial relationships and lose future business.
The Late Payment Act 1998 provides creditors with the right to charge 8% interest plus the Bank of England base rate on overdue payments for goods or services, plus administrative costs, provided they are fixed and reasonable.
There are several support options to help you recover debts, from online portals that generate letters before action, through to retained support from debt recovery experts.
Photo exhibition highlights life on Coventry’s streets
A group of people with experience of homelessness joined visitors, academics and charity partners to celebrate the arrival of Constellations of HOME – an exhibition of photography and personal reflections on life on the street.
The exhibition, held at the University of Warwick’s new Faculty of Arts Building, including artefacts and photographs chosen and co-curated by the participants alongside assisted self-portraits.
The participants, the Agency Group, created the work alongside Anthony Luvera, Associate Professor of Photography in the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities at Coventry University.
The launch comes one year after Agency by Anthony Luvera was first exhibited in October 2021 as part of the HOME: Arts and Homelessness Festival during Coventry’s City of Culture year. The group of participants who worked with Luvera have continued to meet regularly ever since.
Eskuta in line for prestigious SME award
Local e-mobility company, Eskuta is in the running to be crowned Small Business of the Year
Eskuta, based at the Bermuda Park Innovation centre, Nuneaton is amongst 1 of 5 companies hand selected by a panel of expert judges to be in with a chance of winning this year’s Coventry and Warwickshire Live business award for, Small Business of the Year.
Managing Director Ian O’Connor said, “We are absolutely thrilled to have been shortlisted, we’ve had a great 12 months, with the business scaling dramatically, so to have this recognised is wonderful for both me and my team.
“We all have our fingers crossed for the final and are very much looking forward to meeting the other nominees.”
Are HR consultants covered by legal privilege?
Although HR advisors provide an invaluable service to SMEs, employers need to be aware that any legal advice they provide is not covered by legal privilege.
Coventry-based law firm Askews explains that in situations where an employee has a grievance or is subject to a disciplinary investigation, you, as an employer, are likely to seek legal advice well before Tribunal proceedings are contemplated.
Your questions and the advice given can contain sensitive information which may, if disclosed by the employee’s solicitor, prejudice your side of the case should the matter end up in the Employment Tribunal.
If you receive such advice from an HR consultant, although the advice may be excellent, it will not be covered by legal privilege, and nor will any other communications between you both.
To protect your best interests, in situations where a matter has even the slightest potential to end up in court, Askews suggests contacting an employment law solicitor for advice.
West Midlands law firm enhances support to charities with new legacy administration service launch and specialist hire
Leading full-service law firm Shakespeare Martineau has expanded the support it provides to charities with its newly-launched legacy administration service – helping organisations maximise the gifts they receive in wills.
Alongside interim or permanent legacy administration services, the offering provides charities across England and Wales with strategic legacy project work, legacy forecasting and budgeting, procedure reviews, and team training.
As part of the launch, the firm, which has office hubs in Birmingham, Solihull and Stratford-upon-Avon, has welcomed specialist solicitor Gaynor Lanceley to head-up the service – bringing with her almost 20 years’ experience in legacy administration.
A highly experienced solicitor who has both the STEP and Solicitors for the Elderly accreditations, Gaynor has joined Shakespeare Martineau from Catherine Higgins Law. Prior to this, she worked at Jackson Lees Group and Morecrofts Solicitors. Over the years, she has supported multiple charities, including the Yorkshire and North West air ambulance charities, and was previously a trustee for the Woodlands Hospice.
Gaynor, who will be primarily based at home in Liverpool but working with clients and teams nationally, said: “There are very few law firms in the UK that offer a legacy administration service, particularly in the midlands and the north, so this launch is a fabulous experience, venture and opportunity for us.
“I am passionate about working with charities to help them to recognise the importance of legacy income, which is growing year on year. Gifts to charity are very personal and mean so much to the donor who kindly included them in their will – the importance of even the smallest such gift should never be underestimated.
“As a solicitor, I can explain the terms set out in wills and trusts and decode legal jargon. I can answer complex tax and accounts issues, and provide updates regarding the legal administrative process. For me, this is the best job in the world and it is a privilege to be able to work with charities to maximise the gifts they receive in wills and ensure their supporters’ wishes are carried out.
Research by charity legacy consortium Legacy Foresight shows the total UK legacy income grew from £800m in 1990 to £3bn in 2020. It also estimates that legacy income will be worth £19.6bn by 2025 – climbing to £23bn in the second half of the decade.
As well as broad expertise in charity law, Shakespeare Martineau’s fullservice team is able to support charities with employment law, funding and corporate advice, intellectual property considerations, and real estate advice. The team also has particular and unique expertise advising charities on contentious probate issues.
Andrew Wilkinson, partner and head of contentious probate at Shakespeare Martineau, said: “We are delighted to welcome Gaynor to the firm. Her experience, knowledge and expertise will be a real asset as we look to grow our charities and not for profit offering, starting with our new legacy administration service.”
Shakespeare Martineau is proactively seeking talented people to join the firm on its growth journey, including mergers, team recruitment and lateral hires nationally.
Serco Restart Scheme Coventry: Supporting people in the local area find sustainable employment
The Restart Scheme is part of the Government’s wider ‘Plan for Jobs’ programmes to help long-term unemployed people develop their skills so they can find sustainable and meaningful employment. Serco are the provider for the Restart Scheme in West Central England, which covers Coventry and Warwickshire. The Scheme aims to break down employment barriers that could be holding people back from finding long-term, meaningful employment.
To support the cost-of-living crisis, the Coventry Restarts Scheme Team have been working on several initiatives to support Restart Scheme Participants, including: - Providing healthy, easy-to-cook, food recipe meal bags to take away and cook at home (the recipes all have short cooking times). - A harvest festival mini foodbank for
Participants to help themselves to fresh fruit and tinned/dried produce. - Having a stock of thermal socks to give to Participants in need. - Holding coffee mornings in November for Participants to come and have a cuppa, biscuits and general chat.
As well as this, they are running a ‘Cost of Living’ Roadshow in collaboration with the Department of Work and Pensions and various partners at Coventry Job Shop on the 29th of November. The roadshows are a chance for Participants to meet local and national organisations and get real advice that can help them to manage their money, and to know where and how help can be found.
Looking after the welfare of Participants on the Restart Scheme is just one of the areas the programme covers.
The Restart Scheme also works with business in the area to help fill recruitment needs.
In Coventry, they are currently finding that Warehousing and Retail are hot industries and they are holding insight sessions for employers in these industries to demonstrate how the Restart Scheme can help, which is followed up with tailored support for Participant to make applications and present their skills at interviews.
